Blood Beneath my Skin
by Unloved Pairings
Summary: I was created as a copy, intended to destroy the original as per my master's wishes. I have never been my own person - hell, I have never been a person at all. How I would love to be an original...


**A/N: This little fic takes place in what could be considered Metal Sonic & Omega's future, about 15 years after the end of Sonic Heroes, told from the perspective of Metal Sonic. Warning for character death and suicide.**

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I'm not quite sure what happened, or why it was happened to me. Through the years I've spent alone, I've come to accept that from the beginning, I was destined to wind up here, encapsulated in this dark, dreadful place. Though fate is a very human concept in itself, the fact is that I was created to serve, nothing more. My master has since abandoned me here, along with many other scraps. With no master, my only worth is that of scrap metal. But isn't that what I wanted? Freedom?

Not a day goes by that I do not wonder where my master may be. He very well could be dead, and if he is alive, the odds are that he does not plan to return. Even so, I have been awaiting orders long enough that I can feel my body and even my thoughts beginning to corrode. I do not remember the name of my master, nor my own name; that is, if I ever even had one. I have always longed to have blood, to have warm flesh and a beating heart, yet even in a metal casing I find myself losing memories just as a dying human would.

Is this how dying feels?

I pity humans if that is the case.

I have been dying for longer than I would care to.

November twenty-fourth. Cold and cloudy outside, most likely. The day I will free myself; not only from this capsule, but from servitude. Free from the lifeless shell of a body.

I reach upwards, the lid of the capsule lifting with much less struggle than expected. The hinge shrieks in protest as I pull myself over the lip of the container, but with no one around to hear, it may as well have been silent - as well as the resonant echo of metal hitting the floor as I leave what had, for so many years, been my prison.

_I cannot move my legs._

This is the first thing that registers when I attempt to lift myself up. I am determined to finish this quickly, though, so I manage to ignore the fact that my lower half has rusted into disuse and use my hands to drag myself in the direction of the small patch of light in the center of the room - cast there by a small hole in the ceiling, no doubt. How very undignified it is - if I had been a living creature I surely would have been euthanized by now. If I possessed a sense of smell, I may have been able to detect the crisp Autumn air underneath the cloying aroma of decay.

"You have awoken."

I am less than one meter from my destination when the silence enveloping me sputters and dies in the form of a piercing monotone that bounces off the rotting walls and shakes me to my core. A small greenish light that I had not noticed before begins to brighten as it moves toward me. Seconds later I know who this entity is, and I gaze upwards at its tall metal frame as my assailant moves into the light. _Omega_.

"E-123. It has been a long time." He lifts me up, and I fit easily within his hands. I do not protest, but I certainly shall if he reveals any intention to encapsulate me once again.

"You are not of the E-series. What do you wish to be called?"

His question gives me pause, and I am at a loss for an answer. I had been expecting to be asked what I am called, rather than what I wish to be called. I still do not remember my given name, but I do know that I was created as a copy, intended to destroy the original as per my master's wishes. I have never been my own person - hell, I have never been a person at all. How I would love to be an original...

Unfortunately, I am not the epitome of creativity, and am unable to create my own name. I sigh internally, as I do not have a respiratory system allowing me to physically display my frustration, and give him my answer.

"_Metal_. That is all."

E-123 is just as much robot as I am, but he is much less capable of expression, possibly because he was not created to resemble a living being. He is an original.

"You have lost lower limb function." He tells me as if I didn't know and had earlier simply been dragging myself across the filthy floor because I thought it would be fun. "You require repairs."

"I am fine," I state, leaving the words hanging in the damp air as if I had more to say, but I quickly decide against it and turn my head to face Omega's. After my great failure, my bold but doomed plan to gain complete freedom, he had been the one to pick me back up. To bring me here. I remember this because he holds me the same way he did after I had reverted to my smallest form, my weakest. I do not remember the details, only that it had been a beating of epic proportions, a disgrace my enemies would tell their grandchildren about. "E-123. I do not wish to be fixed at this time."

If the other robot had more expressive facial construction, I am sure his look of confusion would have been humorous. I place my hand on my own stomach, a dull clunk echoing twice against the far wall. The other's robotic monotone inquires of me again;

"What is it that you wish?" This question, for some reason, soothes me. I quite like being asked what I wish - it was not a question I had ever received prior to my awakening several minutes ago.

What did I wish? I did not need to think for very long. Before my failure, I would have wished for freedom, but do I not have that now? I wish now for...

"I wish to be human." My red eyes glow, casting light like magma over the metallic surface of my friend and the air around us. "I want with every ounce of my being to have warm flesh; hot blood coursing through me. I want to feel agony and joy and love and passion. I want to be born again and in my time I want to die and to be buried, returned to the ground from which my metal was extracted. That is my wish."

The silence following is thick. Not uncomfortable; rather, it feels... pensive. As if both of us are calculating what to say next. Apparently, he is quicker, because Omega speaks first, breaking the silence.

"I will find you a body of flesh and blood."

"How do you plan on accomplishing that, E-123?" As much as I would like that, changing me into a human didn't sound like an easy task.

"This I am unsure of. However, I will see it done. Your wish will be granted."

I press my face against the other's in a brief display of affection; metal against metal. Cold, lifeless metal - yet underneath, there is much more. I can feel emotion. Perhaps not in the same way as a human can, but it is there. I just know.

I flip open a hatch on my chest, reaching inside and curling rusted fingers around a thick hunk of wires. I close my eyes - if I could, I'd laugh. But I can't. Not yet, anyway.

"I will hold you to your word, E-123. _Omega_. Wake me when I have blood beneath my skin." In a swift move, I yank hard on the wires, listening to them snap - at first one at a time, and then suddenly all of them at once -

_!_

A feeling of pain overcomes me in a way that I cannot describe with words. It feels good.

When I wake, I'll be human.

I trust him.

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**Please review if you liked it!**

**I do feel like leaving the story as a one-shot would be a fitting ending, but if it gets a good response, I'll continue with Metal Sonic waking as a cyborg and trying to adjust to life with flesh and blood. So more reviews = more story!**


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